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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Bausch&Lomb CinemaScope Baltars.

Björn Benckert said:
Yes, I used to have a full set that was originally in BNC-R. I bought it for 1.500USD back in 2004. Then I converted them to PL sometime around 2010 and sold them shortly after for something like 15000USD. I remember I was feeling guilt about selling them to a DP in Norway for such high amount... Today they often go for something like 100.000 USD :)

They are really nice but the original build quality is not so good and they where only design for academy, the wides are not really covering S35.

The Cinemascopes are made from the Baltars not the super baltars and made with a wider image circle to cover full S35 in ANA. As i understand B&L wanted to create a anamorphic standard with the sound outside the perf on the projected positive and use the full width for image. But that did not fly so well among the theaters so lots of B&L Cinemascope filmes where cut of on the left hand side to leave room for a sound track. The bridge over the river kwai is often seen with the titles slightly to the left for that reason. Even though I think netflix now have a full copy of the film. Well worth a watch just for the image qualities alone I think.

I think also the baltar lenses will really go up in price. even if they are a bit slower than the super baltars they are really good looking glas and people start to rehouse them now.
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Damn !! $100,000. Yeah, whatever people are willing to pay for an item . I think cinematographers are trying to differentiate themselves from one another in unique ways these days. It seems vintage anamorphic lens are being used on some of the more recent Hollywood films. Another vintage lens I've noticed recently being used in more recent Hollywood films are theCooke Crystal (Xtal) Express anamorphics. One of my favorite dark dramas " The Neon Demon" by one of my favorite Danish directors, Nicolas Winding Refn, was shot with it.





Here's a list of recent films shot entirely or partially with the Cooke Crystal (Xtal) Express anamorphics.

https://shotonwhat.com/lenses/panavision-cooke-xtal-xpress-lenses

With you and so many repurposing vintage anamorphic lenses such as the Bausch & Lomb CinemaScope Baltars for modern cinema cameras, it just might be normal in the future to see more vintage than modern anamorphic lenses being used on sets.
 
Bjorn is right, his lenses are made from B&L Baltars, the original ones in BNC mount from the 1930's that were obsoleted when the reflex viewing system for Mitchell cameras was introduced in the mid-60's (and thus, the BNC mount was updated to BNC-Reflex). That's when the Super Baltars were born. I have a set of Baltars (non Super) and they are pretty unique and have very good coverage.
 
Nick Morrison said:
I believe the non super Baltars are what Gordon Willis used on The Godfather
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Super Baltars with a Mitchell BNCR mount. According to IMDB.

I had and used that camera a lot and sold it when I bought my epic MX M when it came out. Really nice camera, only had a small scary thing going. The butterfly mirror could cause a flickering every second frame flair in the upper left corner. Something that could not be seen when shooting. So I was always shit scared for hitting light into camera and had nightmares between shoot and seeing the rushes. Usually all good, but there where times when that was not the case :) Insane to think of how fast things have moved forward.
 
Björn Benckert said:
Super Baltars with a Mitchell BNCR mount. According to IMDB.

I had and used that camera a lot and sold it when I bought my epic MX M when it came out. Really nice camera, only had a small scary thing going. The butterfly mirror could cause a flickering every second frame flair in the upper left corner. Something that could not be seen when shooting. So I was always shit scared for hitting light into camera and had nightmares between shoot and seeing the rushes. Usually all good, but there where times when that was not the case :) Insane to think of how fast things have moved forward.
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That may be what IMDB says, but I remember reading somewhere (I believe American Cinematographer) that he actually used the non supers.
 
Did a moco thing recently where we opted to use helium and a Ultra prime. So I used our monstro to shoot some bts material with the cinemascope 100mm. I really like this lens on monstro sensor. The sensor is so big so a 100mm is actually quite wide. Love it, think if I only could pick one to make a project it might be the 100mm.


https://vimeo.com/330744992
330744992
 
I may be mistaken Bjorn, but I think your 100mm is the Series E 100mm...

I have the 50 and 75 Series E that go with your 100E.

The Series E added corrective linear cylindrical Optics to fix the anamorphic coefficient for close focus, meant to make them usable alongside the likes of early Panavision lenses which were Mumps-Free.

Loved that BTS, nice stuff.

Yeah, these lenses rock.

I’m in the process of reworking/restoring my Series E 50+75 for usage.
 
Dan Kanes said:
I may be mistaken Bjorn, but I think your 100mm is the Series E 100mm...

I have the 50 and 75 Series E that go with your 100E.

The Series E added corrective linear cylindrical Optics to fix the anamorphic coefficient for close focus, meant to make them usable alongside the likes of early Panavision lenses which were Mumps-Free.

Loved that BTS, nice stuff.

Yeah, these lenses rock.

I’m in the process of reworking/restoring my Series E 50+75 for usage.
Click to expand...

Yes its a Blue E series. But I dont really mind the mumping on the none E series. But wish there was more longer focal lenghts of these like a 150 and 200mm but have not seen any.

Have two projects this summer where Im incharge and decided to use these, really looking foward to it.
 
Finally gathered the courage to use these large lumps of glas and casted metal on a real production this week. Wanted to do it before but chicken out every time as I worried over the VFX work getting difficult and then turned to more conventional Ana's.

This time is no different, it will be months and months of post work also this time. But managed to calm my nerves by putting a GoPro witness cam on the nose of the camera likely that sort most of the 3D tracking issues if there are any. At least that keeper me calm enough not to run towards the truck to get the backup option which was kowa´s and sigmas.

Today when looking trough the source I'm very happy I used them, shit came out over my expectation. I really like the combo of monstro / these lenses and shooting them very closed down and extreme short shutter / no ND. I find most ND really contaminate picture and with the new AI motion blur in flame looking as good as it does I rather add shutter in post than loosing detail from shooting with a longer exposures, basically I like to add as little motion blur as possible just to keep the image from stuttering doing so I can get tack sharpness and preserve faces detail etc in a totally different way then at in camera 180 deg or such.

Also as I shot lot of it motion on moco slider with layers and no blue screen, the short shutter really makes the composting way easier, then when done just bake artificial AI motion blur on top of the comps and it all blends really well.

Any how, here are a few screen dumps from the straight source mostly 50p about 4deg shutter 5600k 2000ISO and only Panavision DXL2 lut in camera and Ipp2 soft rolloff as the only grade.

A005_C054_08289J by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

PastedGraphic-3 2 by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

PastedGraphic-4 by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

A005_C077_0828IQ by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

A005_C044_0828RS by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

A005_C048_0828UU by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

A005_C072_08287O by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

PastedGraphic-3 3 by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

A005_C037_08282J by Björn Benckert, on Flickr


Then this BTS picture, Jarred can we please have a low cost high nits replacement kit for the 7" swivel mount touch screen?

IMG_E5613 by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

Pappa Bear cant see what he is shooting when in daylight... :)

IMG_E5615 by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

For the print campaign I shot panorama plates with 14mm sigma. Nuts every time to see the DR of monstro. These two frames are both same exposure, but 2 different iso settings... both looking like glas. Then I shot a tiled x9 frame with 3 x exposures for each. which for sure is way more info than needed to relight the whole scenery any way wanted. But in retrospect... should have used the Cinemascopes for this as well. Shit simply looks boring spherical.

A006_C001_0828CC by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

A006_C001_0828CC by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

A006_C032_0828RP by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

And here, for all those that say what difference does it do, can we not use a GoPro instead...nope shit simply does not look as good :)

G0010377 by Björn Benckert, on Flickr
 
Bjorn,


I love the look of this specific Vintage Anamorphic lens on the Monstro. The Panasonc DXL lut , IMHO, shifted some Red .R3d scenes a little too "Blue", which is why it would probably be better to use the IPP2 Luts alone which were designed for Red cameras/OLPFs. If you don't mind, here is a couple of redos.



1-2-1-1-2-1.jpg



1-4-1-1-4-1.jpg



1-3-1-1-3-1.jpg



1-6-1-1-6-1.jpg



1-9-1-1-9-1.jpg



1-1-1-1-1-1.jpg



4-1-7-4.jpg
 
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Now I cant really recommend these to anyone. They for sure are not the best anas to use with gimbals or handheld. And there is probably better options available for pretty much any type of shooting. But if you want to have something uniqe with lot of character That holds more film history then most. Then yes these nostalgic glas filled iron cast buckets can now be yours. ;)

http://www.syndicate.se/bauch-lomb-cinemascopes/


Ebay auction: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/133245196204

Edit: realised I did not actually have any photos of all 8 lenses so here it is. With boxes and all. And yes also put the bigest one, the 100mm on a scale 7.9kg. the lightest one is about 2kg less weight.

all 8 by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

PastedGraphic-12 by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

PL mount.

IMG_0798 by Björn Benckert, on Flickr

PastedGraphic-10 by Björn Benckert, on Flickr
 
Bump
Only hours left.
Got some in official bids / not listed on Ebay. But same bids level bids listed on ebay will be prioritized. So go for it. Listed price is way less than what they cost to get to their current state. Not mentioning the hassle gathering them and have them fixed. So for those that want something like this I think its a bargain.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bausch-Lom...196204?hash=item1f060857ac:g:urUAAOSwq~Bd1ltk
 
Sold them. That one I beleave is the large 55mm format version. Its now sold it looks like.
 
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